I'm tying off, man. I got my works out. Oh yeah, baby. Come on, right here, right in the vein. Oh yeah . . . so good . . . so . . . Oh, man, somebody ripped me off with some weak-ass, stepped-on Zogby! No way, that's not going to do it. I'm jonesing bad, I can't be getting by on Zogby!

Okay, don't panic. Don't panic. Pollster.com will hook me up. What? Nothing new? Okay, talk to me RCP, you have to be holding. I need a fix, man, you can't cut me off like this.

Fivethirthyeight, you know I love you, you know I'll do anything for you. Anything. You know what I'm saying? I just need me some poll. Daddy needs it bad.

You got what? A California poll? What the f**k am I gonna do with a California poll? Are you kidding me? At least give me a taste of some Montana or Indiana.

Anybody? Can anyone help me? I just need something to get me by. Honest to God, I'm going to get cleaned up. I swear. In like a couple of days. But right now man, right now I need some random sampling.

John McCain's senate seat is up in 2010. If he loses the presidential election will he stick out the two years? Or will he resign early?

Arizona law apparently requires the governor to appoint a replacement from the same political party as the resigning senator.

So Arizona's Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano, would be required to appoint a Republican to hold McCain's seat until 2010. (Of course I don't think there's a law that she has to appoint an electorally formidable Republican.)

I believe McCain will be unable to swallow his pride and remain in an almost impotent Republican minority. I think he'll be angry and resentful -- of his own party as well as toward Democrats. His own party doesn't like him and would be very unlikely to place him in the leadership.

In 1972 I cast my first vote in a presidential election. Richard Nixon. Within a couple of weeks I was in front of the White House demonstrating for the impeachment of Richard Nixon.

So when I talk about embarrassing electoral decisions I know whereof I speak.

Those of you voting for John McCain on the basis of fear of Obama are going down that path. A vote against Obama will embarrass you later in life. You're going to very quickly come to realize -- well, those of you who aren't just blinder-clad partisan tools -- that the McCain campaign's attacks on Obama were not just dishonest but ludicrous.

Let me put on my magic Slytherin predicting hat: Obama will govern from the center. He will appoint a cabinet that will be more genuinely bi-partisan, or more to the point non-partisan, than any we've seen in modern history. Respected technocrats at Treasury. A respected-by-the-military moderate, possibly a Republican, at Defense.

He will reach out to Hillary as a force in the Senate to counterbalance Nancy Pelosi in the House.

He will focus on the economy and put more contentious issues on the back burner.

A year into his presidency the economy will have improved (it always does: we're the Americans, and this isn't 1929,) and he will have done nothing terribly radical or scary and the McCain smear and fear campaign will be a sort of vague memory. Those that fell for it will deny ever having done so.

We'll see whether I'm right. But I'll tell you this: what I've just described is the real right-wing fear. The GOP's hard right doesn't fear a radical Obama: they'd love a radical Obama. It's a successful Obama that terrifies them. Following a second failed Bush with a second successful moderate Democrat would doom the genuinely radical dreams of the far right. The GOP would be forced to the center. Forced to compromise on abortion and gay rights. Forced to choose between moving toward the center or letting themselves be entirely defined by the wingnuts.

The rest of you who cast a vote for McCain on the basis of your fears of Obama will feel like fools. And by the way, you will be. Just like I was in 1972.

This kinda plays hell with the whole Obama-as-socialist nuttiness. The Financial Times endorses Obama:

Rest assured that, should he win, Mr Obama is bound to disappoint. How could he not? He is expected to heal the country’s racial divisions, reverse the trend of rising inequality, improve middle-class living standards, cut almost everybody’s taxes, transform the image of the United States abroad, end the losses in Iraq, deal with the mess in Afghanistan and much more besides.

Succeeding in those endeavours would require more than uplifting oratory and presidential deportment even if the economy were growing rapidly, which it will not be.

The challenges facing the next president will be extraordinary. We hesitate to wish it on anyone, but we hope that Mr Obama gets the job.

Warren Buffet, Robert Rubin, Paul Volcker and now FT. Bunch of damn commies is what they are.